Tapjoy founders, Playdom exec earn $4M for new startup

Newsbrief: Tapjoy co-founders Lee Linden and Ben Lewis, along with former Playdom executive producer Craig Dos Santos, have founded Andover Games, a new mobile gaming studio that raised its initial funding by selling itself to another company. The company is still getting off the ground, but Andover Games will merge with Ascend Acquisition Corp., earning $4 million in Ascend stock, and gaining a $250,000 loan to create its first mobile game, Dino Park. Outside of its first game, Andover plans to use its funding to grow the company and accelerate the creation of its development tools and other products. Andover hopes to launch Dino Park in early 2012.